Early in December, I wound up with a full day all to myself in Seattle. Despite the freezing cold temps (compared to California, anyway), I decided to explore the city. Equipped with hunter boots, an umbrella, and googlemaps, I started my walking tour in the only area I was really familiar with in Seattle - Pike Place Market.
It doesn't seem to matter how many times I've gone through Pike Place... I still love taking in the sights, sounds and smells of all the hustle and bustle, fresh seafood, vibrantly colored produce, and tasty food options.
No trip to Pike Place would feel complete without a few selections from my favorite one-stop spice and tea shop. Market Spice opened up in 1911, and there's just something about this place that makes you want to reach for as many biggie jars as you can and breathe in the different deliciousness each container has to offer (I imagine myself as Sophie discovering the BFG's dream jars in one of my favorite Roald Dahl children's books). This time, I followed my nose to a spicy vindaloo curry and a salt-free mild chili powder, then ended up returning the next day with my boyfriend as he was disappointed I didn't pick up any loose teas!
After getting the usual routine out of the way, I took some time getting lost trying to find the famous Market Theater Gum Wall, which actually happened to be right beneath the busy Pike Place Market, in Post Alley. These brick alley walls began amassing chewed up gum in 1993 when theater goers, mainly college kids, stuck their gum on the wall while waiting in line for tickets. Attempts to scrape the walls clean were in vain and theater workers eventually gave up. This ever-growing collection was ranked the 2nd "germiest" tourist spot in the world by TripAdvisor... Ew! Unfortunately, I didn't have any gum in my purse, but next time, I'd like to contribute a brightly colored spot of my own bacteria to this collaborative art project.
Several steps away, the gum meets a different form of street art - the wall beneath the market overpass is a heavy collage of graffiti, wheatpasting and stickers.
In and around Pike Place Market, it's hard not to notice a variety of pigs in unexpected spaces. The most famous pig, Rachel, designed by Georgia Gerber, sits staunchly (well... save one incident involving a taxi in Feb 2011...) in the entrance of the market, and serves as a 550lb bronze piggy bank, raising funds, in all sorts of currency, for the renovation project that saved Pike Place Market from demolition in the early 70s. Since Rachel, 100 more pigs, each designed by a different local artist, were created for Pigs on Parade to raise funds for the Market Foundation which provides important social services for low-income earners.
Past the pigs, and after a well-timed sushi break during a heavy rain shower, about a 20-25min wander down Western Ave, is Olympic Sculpture Park, one of the few green spaces in the downtown area. In 2007, the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) transformed what was once an industrial site into a free-admission public park, containing several large sculptures and art displays.
Inside the pavilion at Olympic Sculpture Park is Encontro das Aguas (Encounter of Waters), a fantastic mural by Sandra Cinto that spans an entire wall. The blue and silvery image instantly reminded me of Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa, the famous Japanese woodblock print of a huge wave looming over fast boats and their rowers. While Encounter of Waters also conjures danger and despair through the dizzying height and span of the waves as they tumble through the window and continue on to the exterior of the pavilion, the lines and patterns within each wave suggest to me some form of order, and within it, a source of calm. A wooden boat is set in front of the mural, apart from the spiraling waves, perhaps representing the idea of hope in an ominous situation.
The park takes you on a zig-zagging path since it is cut in a z-shape by concrete dividers. While I didn't love Alexander Calder's 39ft tall, orange, steel Eagle, it is undeniably the focal point of the park. More than the Eagle itself, I particularly enjoyed the arrangement of red chairs along the way and the cityscape background, complete with Space Needle.
Walking past the Eagle, towards West Meadow, be sure to walk down Skinner Trail. The trees that line this trail truly have eyes. It's like some fantastic fairy-tale art piece, occurring naturally in, well, nature. These enchanted trees are stubborn though... I lost in every staring contest with them.
My favorite installation at Olympic Sculpture Park is Love & Loss by Roy McMakin, a mixed media piece incorporating natural elements of the park with park benches and tables. The artist's explanation is an important accompaniment:
"We live in a world of words and objects. How they become special and take on meaning is fascinating to me. My sculptures are functional but they also have content that you discover through participation. You need to put the meaning together by sitting on it, walking through it, and then recomposing what you have seen and experienced in your mind's eye. Only then will the theme - the process of love and loss - be revealed for you to sit here and contemplate."
As the rain came down harder, I splashed my way back towards the warmth of our hotel in the downtown core. I was stopped in my tracks by a courtyard of stunning electric blue trees in Westlake Park, just across from Macy's, and amidst all the Christmas shopping frenzy. The project and the message are wonderfully meaningful. Konstantin Dimopoulos painted trees in Melbourne, Vancouver and Virginia, before creating his visual display in Seattle in April 2012. Using environmentally-safe, water based pigments on trees in urban spaces, Dimopoulos aims to raise awareness of the millions of acres of forests destroyed around the world each year, and to bring focus to the spirituality of trees and our dependence upon them for our own survival.
By this point, my California-climatized body was shivering from the cold of winter in Seattle. I shut my walk down in favor of a hot coffee and an even hotter shower, feeling satisfied enough with my day's discoveries and newly acquired sense of appreciation for this city.
